If you’re a fan of Baudville’s free downloads and eBooks, get excited! We’ve just released Team Up! It’s an eBook of activity ideas that will energize employees and teams. Longtime Baudville friends will remember that we once sold a book by the same title. Since that book is no longer for sale, we decided to share the 60+ team activity ideas with all of you, for free! 

The original Team Up! book was composed of six chapters covering activities for recognition, teams, customer service, milestones, ice breakers, and energizers. There are great ideas in every chapter! Because there was so much in this book, we decided to make it available for download by chapter. That way, you can download just the activities you’re interested in. Right now, you can download the chapters on recognition, teams, and customer service. The remaining three chapters will be available in early February. 

Valentine’s Day may be over a month away, but in my opinion it’s never too early to start planning! Although the holiday is typically celebrated between couples, I think it’s a great opportunity to have a fun day with your team. After all, we used to have Valentine’s Day parties in school. Why not bring them to the office?! 

Your celebration should be focused on fun, boosting team morale, and employee appreciation, which is a great thing to do in mid-February. By then, the holidays are long behind us and most people (like those of us in Michigan!) are in the middle of a long winter. The good news is you don’t need to spend a lot. These low cost Valentine’s Day ideas will give you plenty to do on February 14th without breaking the bank!

First, an absolutely free Valentine’s Day idea: send an ePraise card. Choose a card to send to the entire team and say “Love your work” or “Way to put your heart into it.” Using ePraise, you can make Valentine’s Day a day for employee appreciation!

 

It’s estimated that more than 58 million pounds of chocolate will be purchased during the week of Valentine’s Day. Bring some chocolate goodness to the office on Valentine’s Day with a dessert potluck. Invite the entire team to bring in their favorite dessert to share. Elect judges to taste the different dishes and hand out awards, like the Stole My Heart with One Bite Award, and present certificates to the winners. What other awards would you give out?

Everyone loves food in the office, so give each of your team members a small treat on Valentine’s Day. Whether it’s a small bag of Tootsie Rolls or Sweet Treats full of jelly beans, your employees will love that you remembered them. Add a personal note to each piece of candy to make this an effective employee appreciation gift.

One of my favorite Valentine’s Day ideas is having an old fashioned card exchange. Create mailboxes for your employees out of paper bags or shoe boxes, and ask everyone to bring a Valentine’s Day card for each of their teammates. I think this would be a blast at Baudville. We’d have some really creative cards floating around!

Finally, I love the creative Valentine’s Day ideas on Mud Pie Studio blog. They posted 101 Valentine’s Ideas for under $5, and a lot of them would be perfect to give in the office. The valentine using the Pop Rocks is one of my favorite because it has an employee appreciation message. 

This week, we’re privileged to have Jennifer V. Miller return to the Recognition at Work blog to reflect on the gift of giving!  Please make Jennifer feel welcome with your kind comments! 

The act of giving someone recognition is a gift that’s in season all year long. And, it’s the gift that truly keeps on giving. Consider this: according to researchers from University of California, San Diego and Harvard, positive behaviors like giving someone praise is a sort of social “contagion”—it’s scientifically proven that one person’s act of kindness creates a cascading effect, prompting others to “pay it forward” and also do good.  

From the entire team at Baudville, we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! We will be closed Thursday and Friday for the holiday and to give our employees some much-deserved time off with their families. 

The holidays are here! It seems like all the major retail areas are already bustling with holiday shoppers looking for the best gifts for everyone on their list. Have you thought about appreciation for your team yet?

The holidays and end of the year are an important time to reflect upon the contributions, accomplishments, and successes of your team. At Baudville, we celebrate with our Year End Party which includes awards, employee gifts, and lots of fun! Our employees always look forward to our event, so I’ve put together three areas of tips and ideas to help you make your own year end efforts successful. You can also get all these tips in our Recognition TV video.

1. Event Themes
Your year event or award ceremony should have a theme! It can be simple or as creative as you can imagine. Some of our past themes for the Baudville Year End Party have been game show, roaring twenties, and casino. Regardless of the theme you choose, you should always make it about the guests of honor: your team.

Your theme gets applied to all the communication about your event including the invitation, presentation slides, menu, directional signs, table cards, ID cards, even your follow up newsletter article. ID cards are an important element of our year end party. Every employee receives a card (we make them with the IDville ID Maker system) when we arrive at the party. The ID card reveals table assignments and makes employees and guests more comfortable because they don’t have to remember everyone’s name!